Q&A INTERVIEW: 'Long Island Medium' Theresa Caputo talks about her 'gift,' her life and her hopes

Theresa Caputo, the spiritualist who for nearly seven years has starred in the TLC channel reality TV show “Long Island Medium,” says she has learned as much from channeling the dead for her clients as they have.

Caputo will try to help others find the same awareness that she has when she comes to Sands Bethlehem Event Center for two shows FridayFeb16 and Saturday.Feb.17.

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Caputo’s work certainly has captured the imagination of the public. Her show is in its 10th season, and shows no signs of slowing. Last year, she released her third best-selling book, “Good Grief: Heal Your Soul, Honor Your Loved Ones and Learn to Love Again.”

She says her performances keep her on the road for 20 weeks a year. Her Sands shows are sold out.

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Caputo, 51, says she has been able to communicate with the dead since she was a 4-year-old growing up in the same Hicksville neighborhood of Long Island, N.Y., where she now lives.

What were you looking to do with that, and tell me a little about the whole process.

“So, um, the reason why I wrote ‘Good Grief’ was I’ve learned from Spirit that sometimes it’s hard grieving, and grieving doesn’t always have to be negative. And I felt like I was at a point where, you know, people are realizing that their loved ones around them. There are signs and symbols, they’re OK, and they want me to embrace life. But how do I do that.

“So what ‘Good Grief’ did was, it really gives us the tools to be able heal our souls, honor our loved ones and really learn how to live again. Because sometimes we don’t know how to do that. So after each chapter, I either have you write something in a journal, maybe actually go out and do something in memory of their loved ones – just kind of prompts you to participate again in life in a positive way.

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“And also, the other thing that I realized from Spirit is that … people will talk about their 12 steps in grieving and not everyone might not go through those feelings or emotions. Or maybe they didn’t realize that that’s what they were going through.

“And what the book does is really give you the ability to grieve and heal on their own.”

The source of all of this information: How does it come to you? Is this something that you divine through Spirit, that just sort of arrives in your mind and you pass on? I mean, where does the source material come from?

“They’re just things I learned from Spirit. Um, you know, I feel that everything that I do is guided by Spirit and by God. And I just – it’s just that’s what I feel like I needed to write, and this is what we needed to talk about.

“You know, I listen to also my fans, and I listen to the people, my clients, of what they say, what has helped them, and more importantly, what they feel they need. And really over the past two years, that’s what I learned – that people were having trouble moving on – like, ‘How do I do this? How do I go out and live life? How do I live without my loved ones?”

OK. Let me ask you a general question: Are you religious in a traditional sense at all?

“Yes. I am a practicing Catholic.”

Did you ever question Spirit’s origin? I mean, where Spirit comes from? Where Spirit fits into your sense of God? Did you ever question that? And what was your …

“Well, that’s the interesting thing about my personality. I’m not that type of person that I need to know specifics. I just need to know the basics. And I feel like the reason why I am that way is because of my gift. And all I know is that I ... my gift comes from God.

“And that my wish for everyone is not to believe, not to be a believer in mediums, but I want them to believe in themselves. I want them to know that that soul bond can never and will never be broken, that there truly is more to life than just here in the physical world and, more importantly, that those things that go on around them is Spirit. It is them.

“And it took me a long time to embrace my gift because of my faith. You know, we’re taught, ‘Don’t bother the dead,’ right? But I’m not bothering anyone. The souls of the departed are contacting me. I didn’t wake up thinking, ‘Oh, I think it could be great, talking with dead people – a great career.’ You know, um, I know that this is my soul journey, and this is who God wanted me to be, and to do his work in this way.”

OK. Have your revelations, or your interaction with the spirit world, has it changed at all over the years? I mean, is it different now than it was when you were young?

“My gift changes every single day. That’s the thing: No reading, no experience with Spirit is the same, and every time I channel the souls of the departed, my gift changes.”

Have you changed because of it? I mean, have you changed the way you live your life?

“Oh, absolutely. I feel the way that I’ve changed, um, is that I am just stronger and more independent. As far as my values, my tradition, none of that has changed. I still live in the house; I still live right next to where I grew up. Still in my same house.

“Of course my life is different: I have a television show, I travel. You know, over 20 weeks out of the year on the road. I live on a tour bus, doing live shows. Right now I’m in Canada. So yeah, my life has changed. But me personally? I have not changed.”

But the lessons that you’ve learned from Spirit have changed you – the way you live?

“Absolutely. I’m not afraid of death. I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid to die. I know that I’ll be greeted by my loved ones that have gone before me. I know that there’s a heaven, and, um, I am just very blessed.

“If anything, I’ve just always appreciated my life, my family. I come from the most amazing family – the most amazing parents. And I am just so blessed and honored to do what I do. And I think what I do as a medium has also taught me was to cherish that even more. To really realize how lucky I am and not to take anything for granted.”

You mentioned your TV show, and the new season has started. What do you think, after these years of being on TV and being so popular, what’s your reaction to that?

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“Oh my God, it’s crazy. I just thought I was gonna film a couple episodes. And here we are – I don’t know, seven years later. Um, and I’m filming season eight of ‘Long Island Medium.’ It’s absolutely insane.

“But you know what? ‘Long Island Medium’ is – the thing that I love about ‘Long Island Medium’ is that it’s my life. I am still reading … the people on ‘Long Island Medium,’ they’re still my clients, they’re on my waiting list – the people that have requested to see me.

“And it’s my life. It’s what’s going on in my life at this exact moment, and I’m very blessed.”

Why do you think it is so popular? Why do you think people are so interested in it?

“Because it’s real. It’s relatable. It’s really my life – of what is going on in my life. Everything that I do on ‘Long Island Medium’ is what I do in my life. In my day. I mean, I’m still reading … at the end of the day, I’m just Theresa Caputo. I live in Hicksville and I talk to dead people.

“You know, nothing. Look, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You know, Spirit has me talk to someone, and say things to people that no one would know about. They’ll talk about their own personal experience that they’ve experienced, that nobody knows about. How can someone say that’s not real? How can you tell someone that5 they did not experience that?

“And, you know, I actually did for years, I’ve always said, you know, Spirit clears out my own thoughts, feelings and emotions, and then replace them with signs and symbols. And last year on ‘Long Island Medium,’ I actually had my brain studied by a world renowned brain expert, Dr. [Daniel] Amen. And he actually read my brain as I channeled.

“So he studied my brain as I just sat and had normal conversations with someone. And then when I channeled, I was talking and channeling, but it showed no activity in my brain.”

“And it also showed that I’m able to access a part of my brain that we typically don’t. So this is who I am. This is how I was born; I’ve been sensing the feelings of the departed since the age of 4. For me it’s normal to see people in a room and there’s no one else in the room but myself. To hear and to sense things when there’s no one else in the room but me.

“And it wasn’t until later in my 20s that I realized that I wasn’t only sensing my own loved ones, but everyone else’s. And it took me a long time to embrace my gift because of my faith – because I am a practicing Catholic.

“Then once I learned how to incorporate my gift with my faith, I struggled with, ‘This is amazing – God has blessed me with this gift. Who’s going to want to come and see a medium?’ I couldn’t understand that.

“And what I learned is that, unfortunately, no matter who we lose or how they die, we’re left with these burdens and guilts. These ‘shoulda, coulda, wouldas,’ and all of these ‘only ifs’ that don’t give up easily. And what I do as a medium, and by someone coming and having that experience, is to reconnect them with their loved ones.

“For their loved ones to acknowledge what is holding them back, what it keeping them stuck, and to tell them to release these burdens, and to help them embrace life. And to talk about things that nobody else would know about and to give them that gift of healing, I consider it a gift and a privilege to be able to do that.”

Here’s a crazy question. When I was scheduling this interview, I was told that you don’t do readings over the phone, and it just made me wonder: Is there a physical parameter to what you can read? I mean, can read people …

“No. The reason why I don’t read people over the phone is because I have an hour and I’m doing six phone calls and I’m on the phone with someone for 10 minutes. So It’s not … you know what I mean? So that’s when I’m doing press, I don’t read someone over the phone.”

[Laughs] OK. Those are the questions I had prepared. Is there anything obvious that I didn’t ask or that you’d want to see in my story?

“I always just say that even if you don’t … if you’ve never heard of me, if you don’t know what my show is about, it’s a life-changing experience. People say it all the time – they post it on my social media. You know, ‘I didn’t know what to expect, but when I walked into that arena, I didn’t personally get read, but what I witnessed was absolutely life-changing.

“Spirit changes my life. It changed my life last night when I was channeling last night. With every reading that Spirit has me give, it changes me as a person and also as a medium.”